The Distant Dead by Lesley Thomson (books for students to read TXT) 📕

podcast and was trying to remember when Lucie breezed in on wafts of lavender bath gel and the dry shampoo she used regardless of the all-body power shower. In her combats and a combat jacket not unlike Roddy March’s, Lucie operated as if reporting from a war-zone, hence dry shampoo. Garlanded with the Bluetooth earbuds that were a permanent accessory, she clutched a bag of figs in one hand, phone in the other.

‘There’s a press conference at 11 a.m., gotta be there.’

‘No.’ Stella hadn’t heard Lucie get up. Since Janet had called her observant, Stella was observing how much she failed to observe. ‘You can’t let Janet see you here.’ Damn, that was the cat out of the bag.

‘Janet? No don’t tell me.’ The penny had dropped.

‘Don’t rock the boat,’ Stella said. ‘I intend to do just that. Imagine her face,’ Lucie cackled.

Stella felt dread pump through her veins. Janet already had Stella as a suspect; how much worse when she discovered Stella had lied, if by omission, about Lucie? Stella uttered the first thing that entered her head and the last thing she meant to say.

‘Janet is trusting me with stuff about the case that she would never tell any other reporter. She’s treating me like Terry. If she sees you, she’ll cut me out.’

‘Wise idea.’ Lucie was fiddling with her phone. ‘I’ll stay undercover for now.’

‘I can’t remember the name of Roddy’s podcast.’ Stella diverted Lucie in case she changed her mind.

‘The Distant Dead.’ You can’t pull the wool over that kid’s eyes. ‘I started listening last night, but fell asleep. Draw your own conclusion.’

‘Let’s listen now.’ Stella connected her phone to the Bluetooth speaker Jack had given her after one of their cases.

‘He has three subscribers. I’m betting, mum, dad and the cat.’ Lucie tapped at her phone screen. ‘There, now he has four.’ She settled into the creaky old recliner she had called her cockpit and which, feet pointing upwards, she rarely left.

‘One of the subscribers could have murdered Roddy’s murderer,’ Stella said.

‘I like that notion. Murderers can be arrogant, but pretty stupid to leave a digital trail.’ Lucie fussed with her notebook. ‘You said March was full of himself; men like that get on people’s tits. The few minutes I heard confirmed that. He makes drama out of a non-event.’ Chattering happily, Lucie nipped off the end of a fig from her new bag.

‘I didn’t say he was full of… he was just…’ What had Roddy been?

‘Let us sit comfortably and listen.’ Lucie nestled in her cockpit.

‘This podcast contains serious and graphically violent scenes. If you are affected by anything you have heard, contact your nearest crisis centre. Be aware I have been prepared to go the distance in my quest for truth…’

Stella was unprepared for the shock of Roddy’s voice coming through the speaker almost if he was in the room. Whereas at the Death Café Roddy had rattled on about his podcast, now thanking the design company who had sponsored the series, he was ponderous, each word lined up after the other. Also, he sounded Australian.

‘I’m Roddy March and you’re listening to The Distant Dead. Over the next weeks I will take you through my investigation of a chain of brutal, callous murders that span generations. As the March hare I chase scents until I catch the answer…’

‘He mixes metaphors good enough to drink. Oh, and hares don’t chase they are chased,’ Lucie scoffed. ‘You didn’t mention he was an Aussie.’

‘He didn’t talk like that last night.’

‘Some of the best true-crime podcasts come from down under. March was after a global audience. Shame he sounds like a satnav.’ Lucie twirled a fig on its stem.

‘I begin with the brutal slaying of Professor Aleck Xavier Northcote, Home Office pathologist, in the sitting room of his home in Tewkesbury on a cold November night in 1963. But wait on, Northcote’s death was the effect, not the cause.’ A pause was filled with piano music that must be intended to heighten a sense of suspense. ‘Why is this date familiar? Older listeners will recall Friday the twenty-second of November as the day President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Meanwhile, in the ancient market town of Tewkesbury, the inhabitants woke up on Saturday the twenty-third to the unbelievable news that there was A. Murderer. At Large.’

‘Honest to God, March’s delivery. Could. Make. Me. A. Murderer.’ Lucie munched on her fig.

‘Widowed, his grown-up son living in London, his housekeeper out at the cinema, Professor Sir Aleck Northcote was alone in his grand house hard by the River Severn. Julia, his wife, unable to handle the cruel privations of the war, blackout, constant air raids, rationing, had hung herself twenty-odd years earlier…’

‘Hanged, not hung,’ Lucie said.

‘The Northcotes, prominent auctioneers, had owned the house in Tewkesbury set in the English county of Gloucestershire for centuries. A picturesque market town where people existed happily, going about their business. Or did they? Aleck had abandoned business for his own pleasure: pathology. From the mid-thirties, now living in an equally big house in London, Julia and Aleck were strictly weekenders. Some of you will have heard, if not of the murdered pathologist, then of the Quarry Murders case in 1941 and the Bodies in the Basement after the war in 1951.’ More piano music. ‘Sir Aleck was more used to examining a corpse than to being that corpse himself. I’m Roddy March and you’re listening to The Distant Dead.’

‘Kinell,’ Lucie scoffed. ‘These podcasters haven’t an iota of journalistic training. They think all you need is a tape recorder and a bedroom.’

Stella knew podcasts were one of Lucie’s hobby-horse gripes. Another horse being that training was pointless: ‘the only way to learn is on the job.’ Lucie was comfortable with holding two opposing views.

‘Northcote’s murder was solved and his murderer judiciously hung in April 1964. The Northcote case gathered dust in police archives, solved, signed and sealed. What’s the mystery you could ask?’ The piano.

‘I could ask,’ Lucie said. ‘Hanged.’

‘Many bad